The gaming industry continues to grow fueled in part by the increasing popularity of gaming machines, such as slot-type machines, video poker and video keno. As is known in the art, these gaming machines initially receive a monetary wager from players, followed by instructional input in the form of pressing a button or pulling a lever arm. The player either wins or loses in accordance with the rules of the particular game. When the player wins, he or she directly receives a reward, primarily in the form of a monetary return dependent on the amount bet on that particular game.
Even with the continued boom in popularity, casino operators are continually seeking for ways to maintain a player's interest as well as attract new customers. One method developed by casino operators to increase interest is to provide a player the opportunity to win a bonus that can amount to a very large sum of money, or perhaps be an expensive item such as an automobile. In addition, bonuses, such as mystery bonuses or progressive jackpots, are offered, with increasing frequency, to players of table games. However, it is still much more common to offer bonuses in conjunction with play on gaming machines.
One approach that casino operators use to implement a progressive bonus has involves linking of individual gaming machines together to allow players to compete for a common jackpot that can build rapidly. The casino operator typically has a control system that communicates with the linked machines and keeps track of the bets received on each machine as well as machine identification information. In one progressive application, the bets on the linked machines increment a pool finding the jackpot that continues to increase until a threshold value, which may be preprogrammed or randomly generated, is reached.
When a bet increment causes the jackpot pool to reach the threshold value, a random number generator generally determines which among the linked machines triggers the bonus award. The award is communicated to the winning gaming machine and the jackpot win amount is made to the player playing that machine. This set-up is an example of machine eligibility for the mystery progressive jackpot.
Casino operators have also implemented player tracking programs that have proven to be quite popular with casino players. These programs customarily provide awards to players based on the player's level of gaming activity. The awards are generally known in the art as comps and comprise free meals, free merchandise, free entertainment and/or free lodging which are designed to entice the player to increase play.
The player tracking programs are implemented by gathering player name from the player to link a player tracking card to the player. The tracking card uniquely identifies that player and acts in conjunction with the casino operator's control system to monitor the player. In use, the player tracking card is inserted into the gaming machine at the time of play and is read by a card reader associated with the gaming machine. For players of table games, the player tracking card is typically given to casino personnel who enter information at a workstation in the pit area where the table game is located. The information is processed by the casino operator's control system to identify the player and allow for the tracking of his or her play.
Whiles these various features have enhanced the gaming experience to the player, many prior art games and systems require the player to receive a particular game or be a bonus winner, such as through random selection, to receive credits. Thus, although the player may have wagered significant money, prior art games liked winning to an individual's ability to obtain a particular game outcome (i.e. a certain set of pay symbols on a line on a slot machine or a poker hand like four of a kind on a video poker machine) or the outcome of a mystery progressive jackpot. This format reduces number of opportunities a player has to win an award and reduces the social aspect of the gaming since, in essence, it is always the player alone, against the house or machine. To overcome some of these format limitations, and to further enhance the interest of casino players a new format of award presentation is disclosed herein